Page 16 - Christiana Care Focus June July 2018

Neurodiagnostic Technician Carly Cline attaches leads to a patient on 2B, Epilepsy Monitoring Unit at Christiana Hospital, with Ryane Griffin, BSN, RN.
Christiana Care opens first epilepsy monitoring unit in Delaware
To increase access to advanced neurological care, Christiana Care Health System has opened the first Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) in Delaware.
Christiana Care’s EMU is part of a larger effort to establish an Epilepsy Center of Excellence, under the guidelines of the National Association of Epilepsy Centers, so adults of any age can receive the highest quality routine and specialty care for seizure disorders.
“We want to help patients who believe they have been over-diagnosed or under-diag- nosed so they can see improvement in their lives,” said neurologist John R. Pollard, M.D., medical director of the new EMU.
“Typically, these patients visit an EMU where they may stay for several days so they can be safely taken off medications, inducing seizures that are recorded
and studied so a proper diagnosis
and treatment can be planned,” said Christy L. Poole, BSN, RN, CRNI CCRC, a Neurosciences program manager.
Specially outfitted private hospital
rooms in the Transition Neuro Unit at Christiana Hospital provide state-of-the-art equipment for video and audio monitoring. In the rooms, brain waves are tracked
with electroencephalography (EEG) and
14 CHRISTIANA CARE HEALTH SYSTEM
W
a general neurologist or
hile most patients with epilepsy are successfully treated by
epileptologist, a significant number of patients have persistent fainting or seizure episodes — or they have unwanted side effects from medications.